Today, airflow control systems are used in retrofit applications in ductwork, mainly to control a room or area's temperature and/or climate. An example of a type of control system that is utilized is a damper, which may generally be a valve or plate that stops or regulates the flow of air inside a duct, chimney, variable air volume box, air handler, or other air handling equipment. A damper can be used to shut off the airflow into various rooms or to regulate its temperature and climate. Various damper apparatuses utilize manual and/or automatic functions to adjust the airflow into the designated room or area, and thereby control its temperature qualities. However, when applying airflow control techniques to retrofit applications, reconfiguring the ductwork is very expensive because of the time and material required to modify such ductwork and the inability to access ductwork between floors or above finished ceilings, for example. Examples of dampers, when there is enough access room within the ductwork, include installation of either trunk dampers in the main trunks or branch dampers near the main truck. However, there are many instances where portions of the ductwork are inaccessible to these types of dampers, and other methods and devices are necessary. Louvered dampers, for example, may not provide a complete shutoff of the airflow.
Other considerations that may be taken into account are issues of noise level and damper size. If a damper is too large, then the damper is unusable because it is not able to fit through an opening of the ductwork. For example, if the cross section of the damper is too large, it may not be installed through a standard register boot. Additionally, damper and blade positioning are important because as the blades close, they can produce objectionable whistling due to accelerated air that moves through small spaces between the edges. Also, register dampers and register louvers tend to create rattling noises. Therefore, a need exists for a damper that can easily access existing or new ductwork and may be adjustable.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional, traditional, and proposed approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems and methods with embodiments of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.